STEP IN TIME by Alina Marin BliachHonorable Mention(Click here for larger view)

Alina Marin-Bliach says, "This body of work was inspired by the Latin phrase, Sic Transit Gloria Mundi, meaning, “Thus passes the glory of the world.”

With these images I am showing little splices of everyday life.

Traveling throughout New York City, on and off now for over three years, I have catalogued the candid moments and short stories that constantly surround us. Movement in some of the photographs is never fully detailed and becomes a blur just lingering within the frame. Only those who stop are truly focused and fully recorded in the photographs. For me, each tiny scene serves as a reminder that we need to slow down or life will be passing us by.

My family and I emigrated from communist Cuba when I was seven years old. At such a young age, I did not fully understand what was happening or why we were being driven out of our home and forced to leave so much behind. Coming to this country empty-handed and not speaking the language, I saw the day-to-day struggles that my parents encountered, and their perseverance through it all. Strongly influenced by my mother and father’s pride and their quest to better themselves, I always understood the importance of education. It was always a priority for our family, constantly stressed and expected.

I studied pharmacy and practiced for several years, but missing from my life was the fulfillment of my passion for photography. Years later, I obtained my MFA in Photography from Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). I have been blessed to learn from some great mentors and teachers including Louis Draper, Jon Naar, Liz Darlington, Gary Saretzky, and Carl Weese to name just a few.

Through the years, I have received various awards and honors, have exhibited both nationally and internationally, been interviewed on Univision, and have self-published a few books. I have a passion for making photographs and also for teaching. I am currently pursuing a teaching position at the collegiate level."

Anette Marweld says,"I use photography to revisit moments of memory and past experience.

My images are windows that welcome me back in time, pointing to the roads I have traveled.

Each photograph invites the viewer to examine their own stories and histories. Through alternative and historic printing processes I explore the essence of emotion and memory. These processes demand that I spend considerable time with each negative and contemplate the past it represents. In the darkroom, I honor each of these moments. I come to understand the larger picture of my journey.

I am a German-born fine art photographer living in San Francisco, California. My work includes contemporary, alternative, and historic hands-on printing processes. The images center around landscapes and figures that are often enhanced with text, textures, and multiple layers to evoke the mystery of memory and the passage of time."

Ann Marie Donahue says of her series, 'The Ladies', "I grew up in a big family with many interesting traditions.

One of them involved my Mom and my six Aunts giving each other gorgeous porcelain figurines as gifts during the Christmas holiday.

I first remember this moment as a young girl watching wide-eyed as these middle-aged women giddily tore open the box and they held these fragile yet beautiful creatures in their hands as their own lives started to deteriorate. These objects seem to bring these women back to sweet childhood. My aunts would gently put the ladies behind a glass cabinet never to be touched again.

My mother, on the other hand, would adorn the dining room table and living room of our house with these ladies. I became fascinated with them and started photographing their intricate details and gestures. I wanted to capture their delicate features and their minute gestures. Each lady seemed to be frozen in a moment – getting ready for a party, flirting, or reminiscing, for example. They have such dramatic flair which really comes alive when captured on film. I don’t see dusty, porcelain dolls. What I see are passionate and emotional beings.

I used color slide film to closely examine the detail of their shiny skin, intense eyes and beautiful dresses. But their ghostly gloss can alienate the viewer, so I decided to add another layer by making polaroid transfers of them. Their spooky veneer morphs into a more intimate glow, and the mood becomes warmer. I feel as if I am looking at old family photos of relatives long gone. The original pieces are small 3 by 4 inch transfers on archival paper using Polaroid 669 film. I have also scanned the original transfers and enlarged them on fabric for a more theatrical aesthetic. I was surprised to see how impressionistic they feel at a larger scale. I feel that there are many ways to celebrate these women.

I incorporate this haunting quality into many of my photographs. How I see the world is largely influenced by growing up in an old home with plenty of relatives. I am the youngest of five children and grew up with many aunts and uncles as well. Plenty of lore gets passed down in large families. By the time I came around, my family had many tales of people from their past. The LADIES depict this other world."

Ann Marie is an award-winning photographer living in Los Angeles. She has been photographing for several years and studied at the Maine Media Workshops. She hails from Glenside, PA and has lived in France, Maine, and California.

She works in both film and digital photography. Besides photography, she loves to tap dance, walk along Ventura Boulevard, and make people laugh on occasion.

Her work has been exhibited widely and is in private collections across the country and can be viewed here: www.annmariedonahue.com

SHE CURTSEYS by Ann Marie Donahue(Click here for larger view)

SHE REMINISCES by Ann Marie Donahue(Click here for larger view)

ENOGRAFIA 1 by Antonio Castilho(Click here for larger view)

António Castilho says, "I am a retired art teacher. At the moment I am dedicated to just visual creation: drawing and photography. I also try to publicize my works."

Bill Vaccaro says of his series, 'The Magic Hedge', "In the 1930s, a 12 acre promontory was created on Chicago’s north lakefront from landfill that had been dredged to construct a new boat harbor. Montrose Point, as it was officially named, was originally designed as parkland, part of the much larger Lincoln Park. That wasn’t to last.

With the advent of World War II, the United States Army took over the Point for use as a radar station.

By the mid 1950s, it was further developed as a Nike missile base – one of many in the greater Chicago area -- complete with barracks and underground missile silos to defend the city against the threat of long range bomber attacks by the then Soviet Union.

Although the silos, radar stations and barracks could easily be seen from any number of high rise apartment buildings across from Lake Shore Drive, a row of Japanese honeysuckle was planted to separate – and disguise -- the barracks from the rest of the park and nearby beach. In 1974, the Nike missile program was discontinued; the silos, radar stations and Army barracks were dismantled.

Devoid of human use, the Point became a natural resting place for some 300+ species of migrating birds. Lakefront bird watchers noticed that the ragged row of bushes attracted masses of warblers and other birds during the migrations, diving in and out of the hedge “like magic.” It has since become known unofficially as the ‘Magic Hedge.’

It is even replete with its own ghost tale regarding a fight between two Army soldiers and friends, Pique Nerjee and Hernando Rodrickkez, Nerjee died that night of an apparent heart attack.

Rodrickkez, distraught over the death of his friend, ran off into the foggy night and allegedly jumped into the fringed waters of Lake Michigan. His body was never found.

A little over a year later, the Army dismantled the base, but the two are said to be seen from time to time at night as shadowy figures around the vicinity of the hedge who look and sound like they are arguing. When witnesses approached the figures, the apparitions vanished without a trace.

I wanted to evoke the mystery of the Magic Hedge’s past, sometimes strange history, and of how it transformed itself back into nature. To do that, I photographed the Hedge using glass negatives from handmade 19th century silver bromide gelatin emulsions and printed them using ziatype to evoke that past."

His work spans topics from the way people express their faith and religion (Jesus Is On The Mainline), architecture (Gateway), to a long-time fascination with fireworks (Boomtown).

His photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally over the past decade. In 2013, his series, The Things She Left Behind, was exhibited at the Lightbox Photographic Gallery in Astoria.

Later that year, he travelled to Lishui City, China to join a group of American alternative process photographers who were invited to show their work at the biennial Lishui International Photography Festival.

His work has been exhibited in numerous group shows at places such as the Ogden Gallery of Southern Art (New Orleans, LA), Lightbox Gallery (Astoria, OR), the City Gallery of Charleston (SC), wall space gallery (Santa Barbara, CA), RayKo Photo Center (San Francisco, CA), and the Soho Photo Gallery (New York, NY). His work has appeared in B&W Magazine, SHOTS, Diffusion, The Hand Magazine, Light Leaks, F-STOP, BLUR, as well as National Public Radio’s Picture Show blog.

His work has won several awards. BWGallerist.com named him one of ‘The Best of the Best’ emerging fine art photographers for 2012. He lives in Chicago, Illinois with his wife.

Bridget Conn says, "After my first few years of studying photography in the late 1990’s, I began to shy away from the darkroom.

Silver gelatin prints were the standard, and quickly becoming unsatisfying. I wished to see the physical mark in my work, and to create objects.

When visiting art museums, I was drawn to paintings – to see brushstrokes and reflect on how each one was put in place by the artist’s own hand.

I drifted into mixed media and installation, incorporating printmaking into my work. Once digital photography became the standard, the darkroom lured me back, as a silver gelatin print presented itself to me as an object. Chemigrams became a natural progression to explore photographic paper as a physical medium, more than simply the substrate on which an image from the outside world rests.

My chemigrams are made with silver gelatin paper, in normal room lighting, by applying oil-based resists and typical darkroom chemistry. The marks I make directly on the paper are not pre-meditated.

The process weaves my concerns of the evolution of photography as a physical and chemical medium with mark-making as an intuitive act. I aim to create a personalized symbolism through my marks, whether the pieces are immediate responses on paper, or constructed mappings in my collages.

Each one is a language I read through line, color, and texture that is indicative of steps involved in the chemigram process, as well as the instinctive gesture itself. They satisfy years of concern over the missing physical mark of the artist, and address my contemporary desire to work with a medium that I can’t fully control. Each piece bends at least in part to mystery, given the endless variables involved – a welcome circumstance given our society’s immediate access to constant correct answers.

My work responds to analog photography for its inherent chemical properties and future potential, rather than the sentimentality of its past."

Bridget Conn earned a BFA in Studio Art from Tulane University in 2000, and an MFA from the University of Georgia in 2003. Throughout much of the 2000s, she was active in the Stillmoreroots Group, an artist collective based in East Georgia, focused on bringing art opportunities to underserved communities through exhibition, education, and outreach.

Bridget has exhibited nationally in such venues as the Kimball Art Center in Park City, Utah, the Art Museum of the University of Memphis, Northlight Gallery at Arizona State University, as well as in Italy, Hungary, South Korea, and Thailand. In 2009, she relocated to Asheville, NC where she taught at several colleges, while working as an arts writer, designer, and independent artist.

Her association with the Phil Mechanic Studios Public Darkroom blossomed into The Asheville Darkroom, a non-profit art educational facility which she founded in 2012 and served as Executive Director and primary instructor through May 2016.

Bridget joined the faculty of Armstrong State University in Savannah, GA as Assistant Professor of Art in August 2016, where she teaches a variety of photographic processes. Her current artwork explores the potential of photography as a chemical and physical medium through the creation of chemigrams.

Caroline Minchew says, "My practice beings with psychogeography; moving through a landscape without object or a final mission.

Through this I explore and understand the earth as it is around me. From any particular landscape I can be drawn to certain elements that I associate with my surroundings.

In a recent residency in western Ireland, the karst landscape impacted the resulting photographs which were rock formation portraits. I ultimately return to the same place with my camera, and continue to return and photograph particular places that I am drawn to. I print negatives using the platinum palladium process, in which I hand sensitize paper with a light sensitive sensitizer and directly expose the large format negative to the paper.

The series I present, Who Piled Before Us, considers stones as markers in the karst landscape of Ireland. Archeological, medieval monuments consume the landscape with weathered stone structures marking cairns, or gravestones to unnamed deceased. In the modern era such structures become confused with natural occurrences or shifts in the earth as well as human interference to the land. Using the Historical Environment Viewer, I tracked registered memorials and landmarks within my immediate area as well as noted ones that I had discovered on foot.

The combination of the realness of the tradition of marking sites with both classified records as well as newer structures questions current practices of cairns and natural statues within the backdrop of medieval history. All of the prints are platinum palladium photographs and shot with a large format camera.

As a photographer, I innovate traditional and historic photographic processes through landscape photography to question and understand a place and time through its natural earth and story. I graduated in May 2014 with a degree in Fine Arts concentrating in photography from Sewanee: The University of the South. For three years I was involved with a project surrounding the subject of platinum photographs, working at the National Gallery of Art Photograph Conservation Department in Washington, DC. Recently, I completed an artist residency at Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Ireland."

CV:

EDUCATION:

Sewanee: The University of the South Sewanee, Tennessee
B.A Studio Arts focus on photography, Spanish minor.

GRANTS, AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
2017 Artist in Residence, Burren College of Art, Ballyvaughan, Ireland
2016 Position at National Gallery of Art funded by a generous grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation
2014 Robert Bowden Shepard Jr. Photography for excellence in photographic arts at Sewanee: The University of the South.

Caroline Waterman says, "As an artist and mother I have always been drawn to the idea that we do not escape our relationship to place or the human connections we make.

Heritage, family, memory and loss are themes I continue to draw from in my work.

I feel a constant need to explore my connection to these things and to make work that deals with my fear of loss.

I seem to be circling an essential question_ how does Motherhood alter all of these things. How much of my identity is tied to being a mother, does Motherhood define me?

As the first stage of Motherhood comes to an end I found quiet moments were the evening light filtered into our space and fell onto my children and myself. I feel that the Platinum Palladium process, being a historic process, contributed to the timeless nature of the subject.

I chose contact prints of the 4x5 negatives because to me they are sentimental and precious, and as such helped to emphasize the theme of the work."

Caroline Waterman grew up in Dublin Ireland. She moved to the United States in 1986 and lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband and three children.

She took film photography classes in Dublin in the 1980’s and again in Boston. She completed her BFA in Photography from UNCC in the spring of 2016. During her time at UNCC Caroline explored various historic processes and concentrates on large format analog photography.

Caroline specializes in Silver Gelatin Lith and Platinum Palladium printing. Her work deals with the themes of memory and loss and she has drawn on her connections to family, heritage and place as inspiration. She has conducted workshops on Lith printing at UNCC, at Appalachian State University and at the Light Factory.

Her Silver Gelatin Lith prints have been exhibited at the University Hilton Hotel in Concord, NC and in a solo show at the Through This Lens gallery in Durham NC.

Caroline has also exhibited her work at UNCC, The Photo Place Gallery in Vermont, the SE Center for Photography in Greenville SC and PhotoSynthesis Gallery in Manchester CT. Her work has been published in The Hand magazine and Lightleaked , and was selected to participate at the 10th Annual Photography Biennial at East Carolina University.

Chris Peregoy says, "Inspired by László Moholy-Nagy work from the Bauhaus Institute in Germany from the 1930's, Light Modulators are transient paper sculptures
that produce light and shadow studies. I've photographed these with a variety of large format cameras using dry plate collodion, a variation of the wet plate process."

Chris Peregoy is an artist who has been actively showing photographically derived art works for the past 40 years. Originally
trained in traditional photographic practices, his current work crosses the boundaries between digital, traditional and primitive photography and marries digital image making with historic photographic processes and painting. Much of his work deals with forgotten or imagined
memories.

His work has been shown in North and South America, throughout Europe, and in Japan. He has received a His work has been shown in North and
South America, throughout Europe, and in Japan. He has received two Maryland State Individual Artist Grants.

Peregoy's work with pinhole photography led him to form his own company, the Pinhole Blender Company, which sells his uniquely designed cameras
throughout the world.

Critical Path, performed in collaboration with Kenneth King & Dancers,
Saint Marks Church, New York, NY 1986.
Planet X, performed in collaboration with Kenneth King & Dancers, Saint
Marks Church, New York, NY 1985.
Complete Electric Discharge, performed in collaboration with Kenneth
King & Dancers. Performance toured to; Saint Marks NYC, Feb. 1984;The
International Festival of Modern Dance, Stadsschoowgurg; Theater Blauwe
Zaal; Theater T'Hoogt, Utrecht, The Netherlands;Tanz'84, The Secession,
Vienna, Austria; The American Center,Paris, France, March 1984;
Experimental Stage, The National Theater, Munich, West Germany; Theater
Lantaren, Rotterdam,The Netherlands, April 1984.
Paid on Both Sides, a play by W.H.Auden, directed by Bob Holmon, sets
and costumes by David Hockney, Saint Marks Church, New York, NY., May
1983.
Scream at Me tomorrow, performed in collaboration with Kenneth King &
Dancers, The Kitchen, New York, NY., March 1983.
Bridge Scan, performed in collaboration with Kenneth King & Dancers, La
Mama, New York, NY., 1982.
The Phi Project, performed in collaboration with Kenneth King & Dancers,
tours to The Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN., The Moming Dance and
Arts Center, Chicago, IL., and Avant Garde Arama, PS 122, New York, NY.,
1981.

Locus, Issue 01: Small Is Beautiful, Baltimore, MD, October 2006
Nippon Camera, page 91, Camera Annual January 2006
Ashiha Camera, September 2006
Chiba Television Japan, Asamaru (morning television show) March 2006
Nippon Camera, Camera Annual January 2006, review of the Pinhole
Blender, page 91
NHK Good Morning in Japan, (morning television show) December 13, 2005
Through the Lens of September 11th, Soho Photo Gallery, catalogue,
September 2002
Arthur Hirsch, Fells Point through a Pinhole, the Baltimore Sun, Sunday
August 20, 2000, Art & Society, page 6F
Baltimore City Paper, review of Pinhole Politician by Mike Giuliano,
April 12, 1995
Village Voice Centerfold by Guy Trebay, March 26, 1985
The New York Times, review of Planet X by Barry Laine, March 17, 1985
The Village Voice, review of Complete Electric Discharge by Deborah
Jowitt, Mar.13, 1984
The New York Times, review of Complete Discharge by Anna Kisselgoff, Feb
25, 1984
Newsday, review of Paid on Both Sides by Amei Wallach, May 18, 1983
The New York Times, review of Scream at Me tomorrow by Jack Anderson,
March 23, 1983

Debra Small says, "Suburban sprawl creates habitat loss, and adversely affects species using these habitats by disrupting the ecosystems. Large-scale development of housing and the infrastructure associated with this development, including roads, highways, water retention reservoirs and human caused wildfires are the main culprits in this destruction.

My current studio work revolves around these issues of habitat loss from suburban developments. Part of my work on this project uses alternative process techniques such as kallitype, cyanotype and encaustics to further the visual message I am conveying of the destructive nature and subsequent habitat loss from suburban development."

Debra Small received her bachelor’s degree in Biology in 1978 from the University of California, Riverside. After working as a scientist for the State of California for over 10 years she left State Service to home school and raise her three children. Following raising her children she returned fully to her love of photography. Debra received her associate of science degree in photography as well as her certificate of achievement in photography in 2015 from Sierra College, Rocklin, CA.

She is currently working on her Master of Fine Arts in photography at the New Hampshire Institute of Art, Manchester, NH.

Debra’s passionate interest in photography started as a young child and has continued throughout her adult life. As a fine art photographer, Debra’s photographic images encompass many areas of the art form including landscape, still life, portraiture, documentary and abstract.

Her imagery strives to extract the beauty in even the simplest or mundane of objects or settings. She shoots in digital as well as medium and large format film. She also delves into the realm of alternative process photography, exploring practices such as pinhole photography, cyanotype, salt printing, gum bi-chromate, ambrotype, tintype, platinum/palladium/gold split toned kallitype printing, and photo encaustic.

These historic processes allow her to slow down and more thoroughly investigate the inner beauty and form of each image. She is currently working on a large fine art documentary project looking at habitat loss from suburban developments and the adverse impact to the species using these habitats.

Recently her work has been published in the Sierra Journal, Stone Voices Magazine, Still Points Arts Quarterly Magazine, the 7th Edition of the Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers, and the Berlin Foto Biennale, Emotions and Commotions across Cultures.

WATER WARS by Debra SmallThis is a kallitype/ cyanotype/ encaustic on clear plexiglass, depicting the struggle to preserve our rivers and the drought issues of the California.(Click here for larger view)

WINTER AFTER THE WILDFIRE by Debra SmallThis is a kallitype on glass, which speaks to the peace of winter following a destructive and all consuming wildfire.(Click here for larger view)

It stretches my analytical mind and challenges my creative soul. It both excites me and calms me at the same time.

It keeps me anchored in the present and focuses my mind. I use photography to connect with the world around me and capture those moments in my life when I am most alive, selecting what works for the emotion and reality of that single moment. Creating and capturing beauty, whether in the mundane or the majestic is what keeps me shooting.

I am an amateur, mostly self-taught, photographer who has benefitted from the guidance of some wonderful workshop instructors and mentors.

I’m an avid traveler and that is reflected in the subjects of my images. I’ve recently become very interested in Alternative Photographic processes and enjoy printing in Gum Bichromate, Palladium, Cyanotype and a combination of these methods."